Small hard drive market reaches intense new levels
Small hard drive market reaches intense new levels
Feb 25, 2005: The market for small hard drive has been heating up recently, following the close rivalry between Hitachi and Seagate, which have both increased the capacity of their one-inch hard drives.
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has started shipping its 6 gigabyte one-inch hard drive, called the Microdrive 3K6, which is available as a removable Compact Flash Type II.
It has released this new drive as a reaction to the growing interest from makers of personal digital assistants and mobile phones.
Seagate has also started shipping a new 1-inch hard drive with 6GB capacity, called the 6GB Seagate ST1 Series, which it claims can hold up to 150 hours, or 3,000 songs, of high quality music files.
Apple also recently released its second-generation of iPod minis in 4 GB and 6GB versions.
Bill Healey, the senior vice president of product strategy and marketing at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, talked about how the consumer electronics industry is driving the market.
"The entertainment and experiences that consumers carry with them in portable digital devices are priceless; our intent with the higher capacity and lower pricing of the new Microdrive is to let a greater number of users enjoy the benefit of keeping their precious data close at hand.
"The desire for smaller devices with increasingly larger capacities won't be easily met in the short term, but we believe the 6GB Microdrive will satisfy consumers' immediate needs while we work on developing ever higher capacities in future Microdrive products."
Dave Reinsel, the IDC program director for Storage Research, added: "Consumer electronics suppliers demand that drive suppliers meet specific capacity, reliability, and technology requirements. Seagate's launch of its next-generation ST1 Series 1-inch hard drive only six months after entering the handheld storage market demonstrates the company's ability to leverage its technology prowess to serve a divergent, expanding consumer electronics market."
According to the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association, digital consumer electronics will continue to drive the disk drive industry over the next few years.
It is being predicted that Apple, Dell and HP will overtake Sony as suppliers of home entertainment equipment. But these consumer electronics, such as PDAs, mobile phones, pocket PCs and other handheld devices, are also useful to enterprises as well as consumers.
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